


Elock

by MrProphet



Category: The Time Machine - H. G. Wells
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 16:56:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10701186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	Elock

It was a crack in one of the crystals that did it, causing the crystal to shatter just as I began to slow my progress through time. I watched in horror as my destination, the year AD802,701 passed and then, acting on impulse, flung myself bodily from the machine, with little idea of what this might do to me.

I landed hard and tumbled across the grass. I found myself in the midst of a grove of saplings, so like a plantation of trees that I thought at first that I must have arrived too early, before my race lost all of its skill in agriculture. I struggled up, cursing my misfortune and the loss of all of my carefully selected gear. I had brought books and tools, but all I had now were the clothes I stood in and a single pocket pistol with two barrels… and two cartridges.

With growing horror I realised that it was night, albeit a moonlit night. If I were anywhere closer to my destination in time, then night would be the time of the Morlocks. I looked around, wandering where I would find shelter, and saw that my arrival had been observed.

The figure that stood watching me had much of the Morlock about it, with its large eyes and broad shoulders, but more height and more definition. It had a femininity of form that I had not seen in the Morlocks of my earlier journey and a delicacy of features to match. Its – her – fur was a soft down, and so fine that she wore rough clothes instead of relying on that pelt to cover her. Still, those huge eyes filled me with that revulsion I had always felt for those subterranean trolls.

I raised my pistol and fired. The creature hooted in pain and lunged at me. Before I could fire my second barrel, she landed a powerful blow to the side of my neck and I fell into blackness. Even as I collapsed, I was struck by the realisation that the creature who attacked me had been swifter and more agile than any Morlock I had previously encountered.

*

I woke with an ache in my head, but at least I woke. I was lying on soft hay, with a scent of warm bodies and wood smoke and cooking meat all around me. I struggled up to a sitting position and looked around in horror, but although two Morlocks squatted watching me from the far side of a fire, the meat which they cooked looked to come from some manner of bird, rather than from an Eloi, or from myself.

My relief was shortlived, as one of the Morlocks rose and moved towards me, drawing a long, crude knife from his belt. I tried to rise, but found myself tethered by a thong of delicately plaited leather which was tied around my waist and fixed to a stout stake. The knife was lifted, but another figure, taller than the Morlock, stepped into his path and growled at him. By her clothes I knew the she-Morlock who had captured me.

For a long time, the two grunted and postured at one another, and as they did so I began to make out words among those guttural sounds; no language I knew, but still there were syllables which were not entirely unfamiliar.  _So_ , I thought,  _the Morlocks have language_.

Eventually, the Morlock subsided, and the she-Morlock sat beside me, her body language both protective and, more worryingly, possessive. She was repellent to me with her downy fur and huge, liquid eyes, and her closeness was disturbing. To distract myself I looked to the two he-Morlocks. They were of the type I had encountered before, heavy-set and hirsute, with great fly-eyes and low brows. They were naked save for their fur and for a plaited leather belt which each wore around his waist, which looked almost too fine to be the work of those thick, Morlock fingers.

At some unseen signal, the larger of the two rose to his feet and took the bird from the fire. He tore off its legs and handed one to the other he and one to the she. The she-Morlock grunted insistently and the he-Morlock, whom I took for some manner of patriarch, presented me with a wing, which I took with ill grace.

He then went and sat with the rest of the carcass beside a bundle of rags, and at that moment the undle moved and I saw that it was no bundle, but an Eloi of a more advanced age than any I had seen before. Gently, the Morlock began to tear strips of tender breast meat from the carcass and feed them to the Eloi. As she turned her head to accept the food, I saw her face in the firelight. It was terribly changed – altered by age and also scarred by fire – but I knew that she was Weena! This was the girl I had come to rescue, grown to rare maturity among the enemies – nay, the predators – of her people.

I turned in confusion to my captor. “Eloi,” I said, pointing to Weena, and then at her: “Morlock. How?”

She gave what might have been a smile and shook her head. “Eloi,” she agreed, pointing at Weena. She then pointed at the patriarch: “Morlock.” Finally, she indicated herself: “Elock,” she said, and with horror I suddenly discerned in that Morlock face the delicacy of Weena’s features.

*

Four years have passed since I was marooned in this time, and for four years I have lived in the barrens. I soon learned that my neighbours were outcasts; Eloi so scarred that their people no longer recognise them and Morlocks born weak or with an atavistic omnivorous nature. I now know that such had always lived short, miserable lives, until Weena came among them, with her hideous scars and a unique gift: Fire.

Uncreative, but with a gift for mimicry, the Eloi used fire to treat with the Morlocks, whose heat had all come from the ancient machines, and so a wary union had formed. And Weena herself made a different union, confirming my theories regarding the unity of Morlock and Eloi by bearing a daughter, Elock, to her Morlock husband, G’lra.

Elock. If the people of this world have a future – before that last decline which I alone have witnessed – it will stem from her and other like her, and from her children. From our children.

It seems incredible to me now, that I could ever have found her repellent.


End file.
